CHARGED for £900 of trendy casual clothes he did not order or receive, a pensioner struggled with the shock debt for weeks while the fraud was investigated.

The mismatch was obvious the moment he received the invoices, says Eric Waldron, a customer of Premier Man, part of home shopping group N Brown, whose cautious spending on socks or underwear rarely tops £20 a time.

But in July it appeared he had been splashing out online buying jeans, packs of snazzy boxers, Nike trainers and pungent after shave.

“I emailed Premier Man to say these were nothing to do with me. But four days later the bill went through, the money taken from my current account, creating an unauthorised overdraft,” Eric explained.

Fearing he would also be hit with bank charges, Eric transferred cash from his savings account to plug the gap. In September he received a letter from Premier Man saying a refund was enclosed.

“But there was nothing, so the protracted correspondence continues. Can you please help me get the money back,” he appealed to Crusader a couple of weeks ago.

The pensioner appeared to splashing out on items such as Nike trainers [GETTY]

The money taken from my current account, creating an unauthorised overdraft

Eric Waldron

A Eric felt he had complied with the formalities asked of him, yet had been left in the dark while a lot of his money was at stake. He could not understand why either, despite his prompt warning, the debit had been processed.

Crusader took up his points with Premier Man because, although getting to the bottom of a fraud does take time, clear explanations can do a lot to ease customers’ concerns in the meantime.

Automated billing systems meant even though Eric had sent an alert immediately he saw something was wrong, it was not enough to stop the charge.

N Brown was willing to cover any extra bank charges he incurred but required proof from statements, that’s why it held up the refund.

In complicated matters such as fraud N Brown says, understandably, it prefers to talk directly to customers. Eric is hard of hearing however so it wasn’t the easiest option for him. The email explanation he received did confirm he had been the victim of a “known fraud when customers’ accounts are being hacked into”, but did not elaborate.

Crusader now learns that malicious software infiltrating his computer probably enabled the fraud. As well as refunding the sum, N Brown is also sending Eric a £100 goodwill gesture for the upset he’s been through.